Science Communication for Misrepresented Biodiversity

Science Communication for Misrepresented Biodiversity
Meredith Hart
This project, completed over the spring of 2022, focuses on rehabilitating the public image of non-charismatic fauna. As the public has begun to embrace the environmental movement, many individuals have sought to protect charismatic species. But these are not the species that will threaten the collapse of the world if they disappear—as tragic as that would be. Insects are decomposers, pollinators, keystone species, ecological indicators, and are declining at unprecedented rates due to anthropogenic change. As insects decline so do their predators (birds, rodents, etc), so do plants that rely on them for pollination, and eventually this decline will ripple out into the external ecosystem even further than it already has. Working with the general public in a hands-on environment is not always the best case for mitigating unnecessary hatred and/or fear of insects. Such education is better accomplished through illustration, which is what this project focused on. This project’s scope was the creation of an insect mural depicting biodiversity and many different levels of biologically diverse interactions—between insects and plants, insects and other insects, and insects and surrounding fauna. Through illustrating both these interactions and artistically depicting the loss of diversity through shadowy abstraction, this piece will cause its viewers to both feel sympathy for insects, and hopefully help them to analyze their own perceptions of the insect world.

Hello everyone my name is Meredith Hart, thank
you so much for watching this presentation.
My project for the spring semester of 2022 focused
on science communication for misrepresented
biodiversity and my mentor was dr Rebecca forkner
. So what do I mean when I say misrepresented biodiversity?
A lot of the time when people think about the
beautiful parts of the natural world they
are thinking of charismatic megafauna: large
animals that are charismatic towards the general
public. Things like manatees, rhinos, whales, and
lions- while all important parts of the ecosystem,
are charismatic megafanu. As I have the most
research and work experience in entomology,
and Dr. Forkner is an entomologist, we have
seen up close how little respect people have for
insects and their role in the environment. People
fail to recognize the crucial roles that insects play
in our environment in every respect from pollination
to decomposition. thank you so much for watching this
environment people fail to recognize the
crucial roles that insects play in
keeping our ecosystems afloat: everything
from decomposition to pollination
this is damaging because in people in so
that people under do not understand what
insects are providing for the ecosystem
they fail to take care of the ecosystem
and the insects within it when people
fail to recognize how their actions can
impact insect populations they are
willing to continue those actions things
like pesticides along with other harmful
lawn treatments and just a general lack
of recognition for our native species
that can benefit from native plants so i
wanted to do this project to spread
awareness to all the ways that insects
contribute to our way of life and all of
the ways that we take them for granted
and i decided to do this through art
so there are a few different ways to
combat negative perception of insects up
top there is a picture of me completing
a fellowship at bull run mountains
natural area prisoner where i was able
to work within the public to educate
them about the vital role that insects
play in the environment and while these
and many other hands-on methods of
environmental education have been
traditional in educating about insect
importance going the artistic route can
sometimes uh help too because not
everyone wants to get out in the in the
woods and pick up a bug i know i sure do
but that’s not realistic for helping
change the negative perception on a
large scale
so as i just mentioned the general
public is more willing to look at a
picture of an insect then go out into
the woods and pick one up
and so here is another project that i
completed with dr forkner during a
research semester in the fall of 2021
focusing on milkweed. milkweed is one of
these super beneficial species that we
see everywhere in native gardens and it
benefits a huge amount of insect
biodiversity in the garden here’s just
one example of a poster i made
illustrating the importance of insects
and one of the reasons that i decided to
pursue this project
so for this project i decided to
complete my illustrations in watercolor
and surprisingly enough home depot paint
scientific illustration doesn’t always
have to look like the medical
illustrations that we see in textbooks
or the super fine line art from the 18t
century it can encompass a wide variety
of educational tools my preferred method
is in watercolor and all of these
illustrations have been part of science
communication projects i’ve done in one
form or another
to create a natural science illustration
I researched using images from databases
for insects that have been confirmed as
the insect identification i use books i
use websites from
or the university of Florida which has
some amazing insect databases
and I use those information
the information I find on those websites
to compile my information in an
aesthetically pleasing and engaging way
for my reader okay
so here is one of the projects that i
completed this semester that will
hopefully be hung in the biology
department it is common garden insects
of the eastern united states here at
george mason we do have a couple of
native plant gardens where we encourage
pollination and so here is just a tool
for some students walking on campus to
maybe try to identify some of those this
is a fairly large poster and as you can
see i’ve encompassed a wide variety of
natural flowering plant species
everything from goldenrod to milkweed
and a lot of the insects that pollinate
them that we might not even see
the most important part of this project
to me was the creation of a split
perspective ecosystem depicting insect
interactions both above ground and below
to truly highlight their contributions
to the natural world this part of the
project was important to me because we
are in the middle of an insect
apocalypse we have lost over 50 percent
of all species as results from the
entomological society of america show
and we are continuing to lose
insects rapidly as a field site in
germany lost over 76 of its insect
biomass in the last 20 years and we
expect these numbers to keep to keep
declining with
human generated changes to the
environment so for every insect that you
see in the split perspective ecosystem
you will see its shadowy counterpart a
representation of the insect life that
we have lost without even properly
acknowledging it i love this this part
of my project and i hope to complete it
within the next week for display within
the biology department
here ias a time lapse of me creating the
project and i will talk a little bit
about my process so this is my split
perspective ecosystem as you can see i’m
currently working on the dirt uh of the
lake and i’m using a hair dryer in order
to kind of blow out the wet parts of my
watercolor into this really intricate
root system that i use to connect my
shadowy insects to the roots and here’s
a really great picture of me picking up
my phone at the end of it
i would like to acknowledge the gmu
theater department for providing me with
a large number of student canvases which
the rest of my split perspective
ecosystem part two will be carried out
on i’d like to thank everyone at ursula
for making this such a great research
semester and experience and of course my
mentor dr rebecca forkner and thank you
for watching this presentation i hope
that you leave this with a little bit
more love for insects than you may have
had already